Matthew's Tweets

Virtual World/Gaming communities

09/04/2010

There's a
Catch-22 in deciding whether or not to invest in trying to nurture
one or more online customer communities. The biggest issue in my mind
is not, "will customers say bad things about us?" The answer to that
question is, "Of course, some customers will be critical, but other
customers will be complimentary. It's better to have at least some
control over the conversation by hosting it, than it is to be at the
mercy of the discussions customers are having elsewhere on the
Internet."

The more important question, to my mind, is "will the community
take hold?" Why would your customers or prospects want to
converse with one another in and around your products or
services? The answer is that they really don't want to talk
about you or your products. They want to talk about
themselves: What they are trying to do; what they care about;
and, also many of them actually enjoy helping others who share
similar jobs, interests and passions, it's kind of a quid pro
quo. "I'll help/encourage you. You or someone else will
help/encourage me."

What Kinds of Online Communities Are There?

There are many different kinds of online customer communities:

Customer Support communities are typically
the best place to start for any company that has technical
products or for one that provides services to help people
get things done.